


Waves of Affection

by LillianaNil



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010), NCIS
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen, Rule 63, Written for the Big Short Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-03 01:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10956417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LillianaNil/pseuds/LillianaNil
Summary: Written for the Rough Trade Big Short Challenge:“Y’know, for the longest time I was convinced they’d somehow gotten to you,” Steve says from her right side. She turns around, her eyes burning in the face of the sunbeam that shines over her face. Steve – Stevie Wonder, the small little boy who had been all that had kept her sane when she had been ten years old and living in constant fear – is standing on the edge of the water, ocean water lapping over his bare feet, looking down at her with concern and sadness etched over his face.





	Waves of Affection

 

“Y’know, for the longest time I was convinced they’d somehow gotten to you,” Steve says from her right side. She turns around, her eyes burning in the face of the sunbeam that shines over her face. Steve – Stevie Wonder, the small little boy who had been all that had kept her sane when she had been ten years old and living in constant fear – is standing on the edge of the water, ocean water lapping over his bare feet, looking down at her with concern and sadness etched over his face.

She knows what he’s talking about. In her heart, she knows there wasn’t anything she could do to ease that pain. She knows the pain was necessary – unexpected as it is even now, to learn that he’d cared enough to have been concerned about her.

She turns her head back, looking over the beautiful scene in front of her; waves lapping up and down, crashing over the dark mountains to her left side, gently waving up and down her feet where they are stretched in the sand. She’s always loved Hawaii, if only because of how beautiful the Island itself is. Of course, the bad memories once had outnumbered the good ones, but she thinks she’s doing a good job introducing new memories to her database.

It’s been years, but she doesn’t think the bad memories are ever going to fade the way the good ones tend to do. One can only hope, right?

She sighs, tilts her head back and lets the warm glow of sun warm her skin, and says with a hint of apology in her voice, dimmed only by the harsh and strict nuances of her English accent, “And you know as well as I that I had no choice in that matter. I was ten years old, Steven, I was only glad to feel safe again, however … however small the chances of that were at the time.” Her voice quivers at the end, and she feels tears sting her eyes even though she’s closed them halfway through her tirade. Of course, it has to be Steve, the one person she’s never needed to wear masks with, who opens up old wounds that have long since scabbed and scarred.

“I’m sorry, Toni. You just… I wanted you safe. I didn’t…,” He turns his head back, looking over the clueless tourists and visitors walking around Waikiki beach, and continues, “Dad tried to keep in touch with the people in New York after you left. See how you were, make sure Anthony kept you safe… but, you never went back to New York, and then there was a new CEO at your fathers’ company and… I never thought you’d… I could never imagine that you’d… I thought they’d found you again, and that this time, Dad wasn’t there to protect you and…,” he scrubs his hands over his face, and runs them through his hair, ruffled by the wind as they are, and apologizes once again, “I’m sorry. I wanted to keep in touch, see… but…”, he trails off.

Toni turns her head, hands working the sand in and out unconsciously, and gives him one of her most sincere smiles, “I know. It was never… It took me a while to start feeling safe again. Dad and Uncle Clive were so scared that they’d find me again, and that this time they’d succeed and I’d be dead like Mom was, and … Grandpapa was very convincing with his arguments for making me a Paddington instead of a DiNozzo. Dad agreed if you can believe it. Uncle Clive adopted me legally, and… one day, I started feeling again… I’d lived in England for years, had an accent and everything, and felt like I could breathe again without the fear of being… being back… I wanted to find you, find a way to contact you, but Dad said it would be too dangerous, one more tie to the DiNozzo side of me, and he was right.” She says, tone all matter of fact, and doesn’t miss his flinch when she mentions, however briefly, what she’d gone through.

 He shoves his hands in his pockets, eyes roaming all around the sandy beach around them and the many people who are still there despite the fact that the sun is in full blaze of its mid-spring glory, and she knows that he’s tracking everyone to make sure no one’s going to hurt them here.

She’s an MI-6 agent now, fully trained and everything, and he still needs to make sure she’s safe. Good old Steve. She’d missed him so much.

“I understand, you know,” he says, hunching down and sitting down next to her, knees tucked into his chest with his hands wrapped around them, head turned around so that he’s facing her, “It was… I just… I think I was just a little in love with you when you left, and it just hurt to think that I could never see you again, Tone. You were, you are, this… this bright spot of sunshine wherever you go, brightening everything and… even back then, when you weren’t talking all those weeks and flinched away from everything, you were just… you were still so bright and alive and selfishly, I wanted you around all the time. You left, and I just felt like the whole world had gone from technicolor to black and white,” his voice carries his “I’m telling the absolute truth” tone that he’d always used when he’d wanted to make sure she knows he’s being honest – for the times when she’d been skeptical of even the displays amounts of affection – and for no reason that she can fathom, makes her want to giggle. So she does. She lays her head on his shoulder and laughs until she feels her toes curl with laughter.

She opens her eyes and looks him in the eye, for the first time since they saw each other again this morning, on that wretched crime-scene on the Halōna Blowhole, and his eyes are as blue as she remembers. With a painful pang deep in her chest, she regrets how much she’s missed him.

“You’re still bloody sappy, McGarrett. Declarations of love, on our first date, since we were children? At least buy me dinner first or something. Or let me buy you dinner, whichever works with your macho, manly, Navy SEAL mentality.” She says, joking and mirthful and happier than she can remember being since she got word of their rogue MI-6 operative dying that painful death in Hawaii. She regrets how she ended up on the Island, but she can’t regret ending up here again if it led her back to Steve.

“Dinner works for me. You’re paying, though. Reparations, and all that. I meant it, though. Just so you know. I did… I think I’ve been a little in love with you this whole time and… seeing you this morning, standing over the dead body this morning, alive and… I don’t wanna sound like an asshole, but that was the best… I’m glad. I’m just... so fucking glad you ended up here again.” One of his hands has ended up around her shoulders, pulling her more to him, so she’s ended up basically cuddling next to him on the most cliché Beach on the entirety of Honolulu. A small kid runs just behind them, screaming and crying at who she guesses is his older brother. Another couple is taking a leisurely walk on their right.

“Smooth,” she grins, “With how articulate you are, I am starting to doubt what Danny says about you.” She teases as she detaches from his embrace and stands up, stretching a hand to help him up – not that he needs it, big bad SEAL that he is.

“Wait, what does he say about me? You talked to Danno?” he says, voice faux-worried, a stupid grin stretched over his ridiculously handsome face. Seriously, how’d he end up this handsome? She thinks it’s violating some cop-soldier rule or something. Soldiers are supposed to be gruff and burly, not adorable and growly. It’s just not right!

“Wait, Danno? You call him Danno? That’s adorable! You guys have a nickname for each other and all! I am so proud, McGarrett!”

“Toni!”

 

 


End file.
